Watching the tennis on Nine West. The picture quality is as good as Nine Perth. Yet other times it is very grainy especially during 9 news.
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From Primeâs half-year report in February. The WA and Mildura joint venture licences are now worth nothing.
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Havenât checked it in a while so not sure how long itâs been this way, but Ch-54 is off air on both VAST and terrestrial tonight.
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RIP demo loop
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but now what am i supposed to watch tonight? 
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Have to wonder when the affected JVâs switch away from 9 programming that if they are running at a loss will not be replaced by 10 programming? The JV partners may well hand the JV license back to ACMA instead than incur further losses with lower rating program supply? May well be the first actioned threat of turning off services by the regionals?
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I really hope not.
Iâm very surprised they never took advantage of TVSN, SBN, or their own curated home shopping channels to help fatten their profits when they were under Ten affiliation. Perhaps now they will shop around for these fillers, especially after 5 years of better returns? Sky News Regional is an obvious one.
Same goes for the Remote Central & Eastern broadcasters. Not a single home shopping, racing or religious channel in sight yet they are struggling the most.
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Is it time to merge WA with Remote and Eastern market?
Drop Imparja, expand GWN and WIN into the east and bring Southern Cross (Network 10) into WA.
Rebrand GWN as Prime 7 and have two feeds for both markets. One for WA and the other for remote eastern.
All 3 networks would only need to rely on one affiliation without the drag of an underperforming JV.
SCA could also utilize their radio brands across Western Australia.
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No chance of this happening unless we see ownership changes in the future (ergo SCA going out of business / selling off TV assets).
SCA would throw a fit about essentially losing Seven affiliation across the remote area to Prime.
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SCA are not interested in TV into the future so losing 7 to Prime would hardly phase them.
The other option is for metro networks to buy out JVs themselves.
The government should be looking at relaxing the rules so metros can just retransmit into affected areas. Ie Network 10 sending NEW-10 in regional WA, commercials and all. Far better than switching off the channel.
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It would be a lot easier to keep the JV going if DVB-T2 was introduced or even all-MPEG-4 DVB-T. They could get rid of the entire West Digital transmitter network and just put 10, 10 Bold and 10 Peach across the other two networks. Transmitter costs gone.
GWN7 mux
| Service | Avg bitrate |
|---|---|
| GWN7 HD | 6.0 MBit |
| 7TWO | 2.0 MBit |
| 7mate | 2.0 MBit |
| 7flix | 2.0 MBit |
| ishop tv | 1.0 MBit |
| Racing | 1.5 MBit |
| 10 BOLD | 2.0 MBit |
| 10 Peach | 2.0 MBit |
| 18.5 MBit |
WIN WA mux
| Service | Avg bitrate |
|---|---|
| 9HD | 5.0 MBit |
| 9Gem | 2.0 MBit |
| 9Go! | 2.0 MBit |
| 9Life | 2.0 MBit |
| Extra | 1.0 MBit |
| GOLD | 1.0 MBit |
| 10 HD | 5.0 MBit |
| 19 mbps |
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Agree.
Why havenât those tech advances been adopted?
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Itâs the perfect market to make this change as the digital rollout was one of the last in the country, so the abundance of MPEG-4 compatible end user equipment would have to be greater than metro and most regional markets.
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I donât think the Western Australia remote license area will ever be merged with the central and eastern remote area. I very much doubt the government will allow it to happen. also it will be extremely very difficult to do so given the multiple time zones
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Thereâs already a north/south split feed on Imparja/Seven Central/CDT - despite being the same license, so that wouldnât necessarily prevent it.
But as noted, the most obvious thing preventing a change is that SC wouldnât want to go from the possibility of profitability with the Seven affiliation in central Australia, to guaranteed losses with Ten, even if you added WA.
I could on the other hand absolutely see a move to a shared multiplex arrangement for transmission, though Iâd imagine theyâd wait for the Government to buy them out of the spectrum as part of plans for 5G, rather than do so voluntarily.
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TEN would not even bother buying or acquiring the JV license for WA. Why invest in a license that will lose them money? Same goes if the East Coast Remote area license area was merged with the WA Remote area license being TEN services in those areas are mostly filled with CSAâs to pad out the breaks covering the metro dirty feed.
Think more like the Feds will end up paying for direct up-linking onto VAST the dirty TEN feeds for ATV, TVQ and NEW after when and if the JV licenses are handed back? Much like how many country councils pay for local translator relay services now. In other words, the Federal Govt may well end up being a TEN affiliate on VAST or subsidise the JV partners to keep TEN services going in remote areas on VAST if they are not already? Just proving the farce of Aggregation.
They canât. The government will not allow it under the current laws
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Thereâs nothing legally preventing Ten from purchasing it. They donât own another television channel in that market, and it wouldnât fail the voices test, and there would be no reason for the foreign investment controls would be invoked over it.
A joint venture station differs only in how the license was allocated, and comes with an exception to the usual ownership rules that would otherwise prevent a station controlling more than one license in a market.
In short, Ten could buy it, but they quite obviously wonât, but that wonât be because they canât.
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